latromafandomcom-20200213-history
Threadjacker
Alexandra Sasha Vassilev, a.k.a. Threadjacker, is a time-controlling metahuman. A former member of the Thunder Force Auxiliary units, she broke with both they and RAPTOR in the wake of the Omega War on what appeared to be a personal mission. Appearance Born of mixed Bulgarian Jewish blood, Alexandra shows very little of the Eastern European in her features and far more of the mixed Caucasian so common to California's sunny vistas. She stands 5'10", well-endowed with a lithe, tanned and athletic build, brilliant blue eyes and hair that has been shocked a steel gray since the accident that transformed her and gave her her signature powers. She keeps her hair short-cropped and usually in a slightly unruly state. There is a certain timelessness that is almost impossible to define to her appearance, as if she were caught and captured in time, free of the ravages of age. She is caught forever in her early to mid twenties physically. She dresses casually when not 'on duty,' preferring khakis, cargo pants, jean-shorts, t-shirts and halter tops that allow her to feel comfortable while still showing off her legs. Alexandra is well aware that she is at least moderately attractive and has little trouble showing off if someone seems interested. She smiles readily, though with a shallow bit of snark to the quirk in her lips. When 'on duty,' she dresses in a blue and gun-metal gray body suit with a utility belt, shoulder guards and heavy-duty boots. On her right arm is a gauntlet with an electric display hooked to a yellow visor or glasses that she wears to dampen her powers. She can use it to change the amount of filtration that her visor uses, reducing the potency of her temporal perceptions if feedback is becoming an issue. Personality Alexandra is an easy woman to talk to, but a difficult one to get to know well. On the surface, she is a vapid, snarky and mildly mean-spirited jokester who rarely seems to take life seriously, no matter what is thrown at her. She has a profound lack of respect for authority and generally refuses to work well with others, save in the most dire of circumstances. She can be very easy-going with her attentions and generally pleasant to talk to, so long as a person doesn't mind a fairly heavy amount of wit and barbs being thrown in at the expense of others. They never seem to be all that ill-intentioned, however, and if she causes real offense, she always does seem to make an appropriate apology at some point. Her humor only takes on a truly viperish tone in combat, where she spares none of her cruelty for an opponent. What isn't as easily known is that her surface personality is there as a front. Threadjacker has been accustomed to people trying to use her for years. In high school, it was a combination of her seemingly charmed looks, charisma, athleticism and solid academic skills onto which people always seemed to attach themselves. They remained near her to bask in the glow of it, to draw from it and see their own stars rise with hers. She came to loathe the shallow exterior that she put on, but kept it as a shield when she saw how much others could easily turn on each other in a heart-beat. The 'mean girls' routine was a safe, hollow routine she could fall into easily. In college, she was manipulated and used by her mentor as a convenient and just intelligent enough pawn in his schemes, leading to the accident that nearly killed her and transformed her into a time-manipulating freak of nature. After becoming a super-hero, she was subjected to what she saw as manipulations by the Thunder Force and RAPTOR, kept under observation more than she was permitted to use her abilities to their fullest potential. She developed a complex about other famous speedsters like Vicky Velocity and about the apparent fear and control issues global initiatives were developing, and though she broke out of the worst of her mold in finding purpose through the Otherworld rescue mission, Threadjacker retained a great deal of cynicism underneath her shallow exterior. In many ways, Alexandra has come to accept that she simply is not a team player. She sees the potential in each person, and frequently sees the worst in them. Trusting her life to others, trusting the success of a mission to anyone but herself is difficult at best. However, she's removed the worst of the self-centered and bull-headed elements that caused her to become almost egotistical in the extreme in her last months with the Thunder Force. She remains a manipulative person largely because of her trust issues, preferring to keep people at arms length, in vapid and short-term relationships or with 'professional courtesy.' It bothers her a lot less than it did in her youth, and she has come to believe that she is meant to be alone, the curse of one who lives in the fourth dimension. The only people that Alex is truly loyal to are her family. Through hell and high water, past the wars of other realities, she refuses to give up on her mother or father, and always thinks of ways to help protect them, especially during the worst of the Omega War. Her deeply entrenched love of her family is seen best in her refusal to give up on her sister Galina, otherwise disowned by the rest of the family for her pagan ways. The search for Galina's fate is the focus of much of her early years as a superhero, and even when she learns of her fate, she cannot give up on the memory of her or the need for justice. Underneath her cynicism, however, Alexandra has developed a deep sense of responsibility for the world around her. She fears that there are powerful, incomprehensible forces at work within reality that only she can properly see. Concerned that she is delving into a paranoia that she saw in her 'other self' within the Otherworld, she keeps these thoughts almost entirely to herself and maintains a constant vigil for signs of the truth. Ethics & Religion Alexandra was born and raised in a deeply devout reformed Jewish household. Most of her religious upbringing was conducted by her mother, and she maintained all of the feast-days whenever she is able, even if she could not return home to be with her family. Her mode of dress was anything but 'proper' Jewish, but then again she always did get away with quite a bit because of her sister's far bolder rebellion. However, despite her fervor in practicing her religion, Alex was always more of a cultural Jew. In particular, the advent of her powers caused Alex to have an ever broadening view of the concept of divinity and reality. She began to suspect that her religion was more or less a cultural heritage of a long-standing people rather than a true proclamation of a faith in an all-powerful god. Her encounters with the half-demon Samantha Grey only partially shook this, as she began to believe that spiritual entities of various forms existed. Having worked alongside the Einherjar, she was well aware that some at least bore a claim to power from the pagan gods. There was no reason that the being that her faith had worshiped did not exist. The question was whether or not he was truly 'God' in the absolutist sense that her faith had always trained. However, at the end, her certainty of self and character was always ingrained in her self-identity, and so she maintained her faithfulness to those traditions, if for no other reason than to help maintain her sense of self. In terms of ethics, Alexandra was, for all of her religious practice, fairly free with her body and willing to take the law into her own hands. She lived by a creed that is simple: It is better to ask for forgiveness than for permission. Most of her life could be seen with this behavior. She didn't generally look for opportunities to hurt her fellow man or take what doesn't belong to her, but if the rules were in the way of what she thinks needs to be done, rules, laws and procedures be damned. She would get what needs done done, and she'd enjoy herself doing it. If, on closer inspection, it appeared that she was a bit on the hypocritical and shallow side, it was because she actually was. Her religion was as much as anything a mental conditioning and cultural practice. Ethics were a tool, and not the sort of tool she was that concerned with worrying about if the greater good or the life of someone she cared about was at stake. Powers & Abilities Temporal Manipulation and Perception Threadjacker possesses one of the most incredible and broad-reaching powers among all of the Deviants in the Deviant Universe, a terrifying and unpredictable weapon that alarmed her superiors whenever she hinted at the full range of its capacities. She is capable of perceiving the flow of time itself and exists as a four-dimensional being as well as a three-dimensional one. The more active she is within the fourth dimension, the more that she is capable of physically manipulating the flow of time in a fashion similar to how one molds clay or grips and pulls on a chord in the third dimension. This terrifying power, however, comes at a considerable strain to her, and one that requires a great deal of familiarization in order to wield properly. It is the lack of stamina and familiarity with her powers that is the predominate limitation in her abilities. Given, ironically enough, time, Alexandra's capabilities in their use could reach truly shocking levels. The uses of Temporal Manipulation are varied and include such things as the following: #Super Speed - While, in reality, Threadjacker is only moving by her own perceptions at speeds just in excess of the best human sprinters, her manipulations of time cause her body to move at Sonic Speeds. She can, even at the highest filtration, always reach relative speeds of 780-800 mph. Faster speeds are technically remotely possible, but she has come to find that risking higher rates of relative movement are increasingly hazardous to her. She always has a near perfect precision to her movements and attacks and never loses her sense of time. #"Mach Force Punch" - Any strike she makes while using her augmented speed comes with added concussive force. While she herself is not moving at an incredible pace, she causes the molecules all around her body to move with the relative power, bringing a bone-shattering punch to her attacks that can severely increase the impact of her kicks and punches. It cannot be used under high filtration. #Agelessness and Time Reversal/Regeneration - Threadjacker ceased to age the moment she became a four-dimensional being. Not a temporal anomaly precisely, her natural control over time simply denies the progress of it to touch her body. She can focus this effect on her frame whenever wounded, reversing the effects of damage done within the last minute so long as she is conscious. The strain is noticeable, but so long as she is only focusing on regeneration, not a serious danger to herself. It cannot be done under high filtration. #Slow Time - Threadjacker is able not only to speed herself up relative to the three-dimensional world, but to control the progress of others. With an effort and strain, she can slow another person's progress, usually to just about half of their exerted speed. However, in a pinch she can cause minute portions of a person's body or objects in flight to be slowed down to a significant level. She has developed a knack for dodging bullets with this ability, though the effort required is definitely noticeable and the results not easily predicted. It cannot be done under moderate filtration. #Stop Time - A severe drain on her strength, Threadjacker can stop time completely. The effect lasts, at most, ten seconds at a time and strains her muscles and mind as if she had just run a wind sprint. Multiple times risk serious damage to herself. It cannot be done even under moderate filtration. #Time Sight - Threadjacker is able to look into the past or future through her control of time. When looking towards the future, she sees it as threads of time reaching out from every living being implying their destinies and the possible outcomes that can come. The further in the future she looks, the less predictable the final outcome will be. This power cannot be one under any filtration, and she must remove her visor completely to do so, causing significant headaches on par with full blown migraines in the process. #Time Travel - At incredible risk to her own life and limb, Threadjacker is capable of time travel. She has, as of the end of the Omega War, never actually used this power and fears the possible permutations involved. Filtration When she became aware of her powers, Threadjacker found herself plagued by ungodly headaches. Using technology she took from Doctor Douglas' lab as it was caught in a temporal distortion, she fashioned and jury-rigged a pair of glasses and a visor that she could use to filter out the phonons and quantum particles that she perceived as part of the flow of time. Normally, she controls this filtration to a moderate degree, denying herself the Slow Time, Stop Time, Time Sight and Time Travel functions of her powers. This allows her to operate as a four-dimensional being without significant strain to her psyche and body for long periods. At lower levels of filtration, she feels the strain increasingly on her body and mind, but her ability to manipulate her powers increases vastly so long as she does not overtax herself. A curious and unexpected side-effect of the "High Filtration" setting is that, while it limits her only to Super Speed, it also filters out illusions, especially optical ones. The more that she can tune out other senses, the more effectively she can completely tune out illusory stimuli of any variety. History Origins and Backstory Alexandra Sasha Vassilev was born on June 6, 1989, in Clovis, California, the great-granddaughter of Bulgarian Immigrants and the second of three children of her parents, Simona and Victor Vassilev. Formation of Thunder Force and Early Career When the Thunder Force was first established after Psi-Void's apparent defeat, Threadjacker had a burgeoning super-hero career going in the Los Angeles area. She'd gone toe to toe with a few minor threats like Stone Face by the time that she was approached by Agent 42X on the behalf of the Thunder Force initiative. The offer was couched with the implied understanding that the international project wished to keep tabs on Threadjacker, in case her considerable powers caused a potential threat to the world. Initially, Threadjacker flipped Agent 42X off and refused, preferring to work alone. However, after being saved in a confrontation with Stone Face by POW (Precision Object-Generating Weapons) Tech Operator "TB," she determined that perhaps working with others might be in her best interests and phoned up the Agent to agree to be part of the Auxiliary units, rather than the main Thunder Force. As she put it, they had Vicky Velocity. Why did they need her on the main team? In the aftermath of joining up as a member, she developed closer ties to fellow auxiliary TB amongst a few others, and developed a reputation as a "problem child" to the organization. This reputation was gained largely because she seemed to feel her talents were not being utilized properly as a rule and refused to take orders without breaking out on her own. She and TB went toe-to-toe with his nemesis Perception, revealing her ability to make use of her filtration system to block out many forms of illusion and giving her an opportunity to flirt with the Watkins Laboratories' star wonder-boy. The two would try an on again, off again relationship, one complicated by their general inabilities to maintain a normal and healthy attitude towards interpersonal relationships (though in honesty, more of the blame lay at her feet than his due to her general distrust of others). In addition, at this time she became aware of the likely death of her sister, Galina Vassilev, and focused much of her attention when possible to seek out the witch's killer, turning what information she could garner through the Thunder Force to her own ends. The Freedom War When the Einherjar slammed his hammer down, literally, in response to the RAPTOR take-over of Thunder Force interests after Pixel's going rogue, Threadjacker found herself constrained and troubled. On the one hand, she respected the freedom and boldness of the Norse Warrior's stance. On the other, she could not help but think of the potential harm that might come to her family, should RAPTOR have used them against her. Feeling hemmed in, she remained 'loyal' to the organization, but further harmed her reputation through repeated arguments with Animal Boy and Supervisor Lloyd over not only her assignment to deal with Pixel clones but also their disregard for potential leads on what she deemed to be legitimately dangerous metahuman threats. Along with TB, she began to gain mounting concerns about the direction of both organizations and fumed quite openly over these issues. Matters became worse when RAPTOR intelligence indicated that the only known link to the time and place of her younger sister Galina's disappearance was a half-demon woman named Samantha Grey, presumably the unregistered daughter of one of the more powerful sorceresses to have lived in the late 20th Century. Little was known about the half-breed, and Threadjacker's initial investigations through RAPTOR contacts within the Vatican turned up only increasingly serious questions about the sanity and stability of the girl she sought. The data was far too sketchy, and what little was found looked bad, a trail of blood and questionable deaths seeming to follow in her wake. However, she was denied permission to hunt her down on behalf of the organization, Animal Boy citing her personal bias as a potential source of conflict and further driving the wedge between she and her commanding officers. At the culminating battle of the Freedom War, Threadjacker was stationed on RAPTOR's Astrocarrier. She saw Samantha at a significant distance, but on orders from her superiors, backed down and helped to maintain the line against other threats. When the Host's manipulation of the entire affair was revealed and Pixel killed the villain, she found that the cambion had already slipped the noose and departed from her position as an Auxiliary in the Thunder Force formally, citing personal reasons. To appease both organizations, she kept herself on their contact lists so that they could reach her in an emergency and monitor her behavior just in case she, like Pixel, went rogue. Investigations into Darkness The search progressed with painstaking slowness over the winter following the Freedom War. Without RAPTOR's resources, Threadjacker increasingly found that the trail of Samantha Grey and her sister, Galina, had gone cold in the wake of the conflict's end. The little information that she had led her to take on various criminal elements on the fringes of the Black Mamba Syndicate. Though she never quite reached Viper's radar, she was able to catch wind that Samantha had been in Ireland at some point, seen departing an island known to be one of Viper's principle hideouts. To Threadjacker, it was further proof of her sketchy associations and she began piecing together what information she could, sending reports infrequently to RAPTOR in the hopes that they might find Samantha themselves. The search, however, proved futile. Unbeknownst to Alexandra, Samantha was no longer among the living. She had departed on a voyage into the bowels of hell to rescue the soul of her friend, Riese "Dusk" Kiffe. No matter how Threadjacker searched, the trail ran cold on the shores of Greece, and the little information she was able to gather pointed to the likelihood that Samantha was tied to at least one missing person's report in the area. Infuriated, she returned to America and began to descend into an ennui as she dealt with relatively minor villains almost like she had before joining the Thunder Force. Otherworld Threadjacker was contacted in the midst of her search for Samantha by RAPTOR, offering her the chance to aid in saving an alternate reality known as Otherworld. Originally surly about the whole affair, she agreed after looking into the future of her possibilities and seeing the danger posed in the other realm. It was there that she began to realize the folly of her go-it-alone way of approaching conflict and was forced to aid her team largely as a supportive role, rather than a front-fighter. Humiliating, it nevertheless taught her a great deal about the limitations of her ability and the need to train. Ultimately, in her participation in the diversionary maneuvers to save several incarcerated heroes from the clutches of villainous tyrants, she took wisdom from such heroes as the Empty Suit and Rineheart to see that though she worked alone better, she could not always do so. When faced with horrid entity known as the Mega-Beast, she put her powers to good use as an aid to fellow heroes in taking down the gargantuan threat. The Otherworld voyage also brought her into contact with her otherworldly self, the seer known as "Doden av Skjebne," the Death of Fate. The insane woman fought to destroy all those she deemed to possess the "Mark of Destiny," and aided the agents of the Otherworld's villains overlords, "Deathwatch" while she bided her time in her search for her prey. The woman's ravings chilled Threadjacker, who saw in her a dark reflection of herself, a woman lost in the madness that the perception of time could bring. Worse, she began to fear that there might be some reason behind that madness, some unseen force that threatened all realities... Omega's Rising Omega's escape from hell was eye-opening to Alexandra as she returned fresh from victory in the Otherworld, unaware of Doden av Skjebne's emergence in her own reality. She saw just how much the heroes' power was dwarfed by their respective enemies. Refusing to give up, she escaped to the forces meeting with the Thunder Force. The meeting was one of mixed blessings. She encountered, from a distance, Samantha Grey again. She was unwilling to put aside her bitterness with the woman and questions, warning the Thunder Force of possible dangers in the cambion, but not confronting her until after she was accepted on the word of Yenna Dragona. Despite wanting to exchange words with the demon right then and there, Alexandra was quickly shipped off to handle logistics with armored support in North America. She shelved her bitterness over Samantha and went, searching for her parents in the midst of her work. She was shocked to find them in the midst of refugee camps and helped to make sure that they were cared for, though she warned them that she might not be able to come home to them for a while. This proved all too true in the wake of Vigil's explosive power usage, resulting in her disappearance alongside all of metahumanity. Her family was safe, but would remain out of her reach until she could return from being lost in time and space. The New DU Threadjacker and Samantha re-appeared in the same place, outside of her own stomping grounds in Los Angeles. She choked the answers that she needed out of Samantha, but found herself unsatisfied with them. Her sister, it seemed, had been brought to her untimely end by a disavowed and powerful inquisitor named Judas Guile. Samantha's hands were not completely free of blood, but the nature of her claims were such that it fit all of the information she already had on the events in question. She couldn't deny the likelihood that the cambion was telling the truth. Frustrated but unbowed, she sought out her family. One more verification that they were safe was followed by word of Galina's fate. Though they had long distanced themselves to their errant daughter, her parents nevertheless grieved her fate and thanked her for the information. In light of the rising anti-Deviant sentiments, however, she was no longer able to completely escape the questions her mother Simona brought to bear about her own powers. Though she was not herself disowned, a growing rift began to form with her blood and kin. Only through her public refusal to join with the Thunder Force and what her parents saw as its "Pro-Deviant Agenda" did she manage to appease them. Ironically, Threadjacker's attitude had little to do with Thunder Force's agenda. Though she kept herself in a position where they could call her in dire need, she believed that their goals and her own no longer coincided. Both wished to save the world, but she saw threats of her own, threats she did not believe Thunder Force could identify or handle properly, and that she felt experience showed would not treat with the seriousness she believed that they needed to have. Going solo, she worked with other heroes whenever possible, finally coming to grips with her own ego in the rise of the monstrous plants that exploded in October 2013 and caused rampant mutations and aiding the woman she formerly felt was a rival, Vicky Velocity. Afterwards, she continued to look for allies in her search not only for Judas, but for the temporal distortions she perceived in the wake of Omega's fall, fearful that a greater threat was yet to come. Relationships WIP